Story of a Death Eater
by Ayla Pascal
Summary: They have called me a Death Eater and I do not deny it. Pride was always one of my failings."


Tears   
  
My name is Bellatrix and this is my story.   
  
They have called me a Death Eater and I do not deny it. Pride was always one of my failings.   
  
I never did think that I was going to be caught this time. I thought myself invincible, beyond the power of the puny Ministry to catch. After all, I did kill my cousin. Another Black. Now sitting here in my dirty, dank Azkaban cell for the second time in my life, I know I thought wrong.   
  
Perhaps it was a fault of the Black family. We were always a doomed lot. I know Sirius thought himself above the rest of us, but we knew better. It's in the blood. No, I am not going to spout my usual pure-blood rhetoric. It is more than that. Our blood ran deeper and faster than that. Ran. Past tense. It only trickles now and soon will run no longer. But that is not my business. It was never the business of the women to worry about those matters.   
  
But then he came. He made me see myself for who I truly was, for who I could become. But he failed me. They all failed me. Or I failed them. Who knows anymore? The events have twisted, morphed themselves in my mind until I now no longer know the truth. Did I ever know the truth?   
  
They called me 'One of Voldemort's Fanatics' at my hearing. A mere label. Something to distance them from me. To distance the clean from the sullied. The good from the evil. I laughed at the label and saw a ringletted woman scribbling away. Insane. She is Insane.   
  
But they forget. They have already forgotten the evils they committed, and are already distancing themselves from the event. They have forgotten the pious ramblings of their precious Dumbledore.   
  
Dumbledore. The name still rankles my tongue. The old doddering fool, my master used to call him, but I knew better. Dumbledore understood us. He truly did. Yet he opposed us and this made him our most formidable enemy. I never thought that Potter boy was any real threat. Prophecies are prophecies. I knew that even if my master was killed, the cause would still remain.   
  
Albus Dumbledore was the only threat to the cause. I admit it now because I have little left to lose. He was a wise man. Was. Past tense. I had to kill him because of his wisdom. He couldn't have been allowed to live. No. He was too moderate. Too tolerant. He would have stopped our cause.   
  
But now it seems that our cause is stopped anyway. I am the sole Death Eater left but I do not cry for the lost. They gave themselves up for the cause. Dying was a gift to them. Their last gift.   
  
They still question me about the deaths. I do not give them answers. I cannot betray my cause. I had wondered why they did not allow the Kiss to be administered, but it seems that they know me well. Death would be a release for me. Life, on the other hand, drags on to eternity.   
  
I never did have a shred of optimism. Idealism, yes. I did have ideals. Not the happy-go-lucky ideals of the Gryffindors, but rather an ideal of a pure-blooded world. It was that ideal that kept me sane during my first bout in Azkaban.   
  
Lifting my hand, I can feel perspiration breaking out on my brow. So, the guards are taking their hourly stroll around my block. Voices. Images.   
  
"Bella! Nooooo!" an unearthly shriek breaks my thoughts.   
  
I jump up but, of course, nobody is there. The Dementor glides past and the visions subside.   
  
I knew that voice, but it is from a time long past. I had not thought about that day for a long time but it will be forever etched in my memory.   
  
I was not lying when I told the Potter boy that you needed sustained rage and a love for inflicting pain to use Crucio. There was a time when I did not have that rage, did not have that sadistic streak. There was a time when the well of bubbling rage inside my chest was a mere drop of childish anger. But that time is long past.   
  
I was never naturally sadistic. On the contrary, I was a quiet child and therefore ripe for manipulation. I first learned the Crucio spell when I was nine. The shriek was that of my friend. My Muggle friend. My secret Muggle friend.   
  
I never made any more Muggle friends. Not after Alice. Not after what my mother made me do. Not after I saw her pain-filled eyes imploring me to stop. Not after she was thrown to my cousins as a plaything. Not after I saw her viciously mangled body.   
  
I once did have a heart, but it was removed... painfully. I could no longer afford to feel. It was not an option. Survival was the best I could do and survive I have until now. That is why I fitted in so well in Slytherin.   
  
I close my eyes and feel a curious wetness down my cheeks. To my surprise, they are tears. Of water, not blood.   
  
Whispers outside my cell door. I feel no clammy coldness. Human then. And then I hear the words. Soft-spoken, almost hesitant. "She is crying." 


End file.
